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Fire Sister Save
Location: Brooklyn, New York Date: June 11, 1994 Story When Ivy King moved from Guyana to Brooklyn, New York, she worked hard to buy a house big enough for her large family to live together in. In 1979, they moved into their dream house. Fifteen years later, on the evening of June 11, 1994, Ivy was still living in that house with a grown son, four grown daughters, and their families, including 28-year-old Carmel. "This has been my home for years," said Carmel. "You get attached. It's a part of you that's like your comfort zone." Ivy was in the kitchen on the first floor, when she heard a nearby smoke detector beeping and noticed smoke coming out of the bedroom. She shouted "Fire! Oh my God!" "The smoke was black," Carmel stated. "Just black smoke gushing out of the room, so I knew it was serious." 30-year-old Diane, another one of Ivy's daughters, was sitting on a couch when she was told of the fire. She was born mentally disabled, but she would take care of Ivy's grandchildren, who all loved her. Carmel picked up the phone and called 911. Her sister, Denise, was one of the paramedics dispatched to the scene. "They didn't give the location, but they said 'East part of New York Avenue,'" said Denise. "I told my partner that was where my family lived." When Ivy's oldest grandchild, 16-year-old Noella, was told of the fire, she rushed to wake up the other children and get them outside. After Carmel hung up the phone, she saw Diane standing outside her bedroom door and told her to go outside. Carmel and her son rushed up the stairs, where they met Noella and the other children coming down. Ivy was already outside. "Between the time we realized that the fire started and the time we all got out of the house, the whole house was just on fire," said Carmel. Just as everyone got to the bottom of the front steps, the fire started to spread to the upper floors. "I thought everybody was out of the house," recalled Noella, "But then we started looking around. That's when we realized that Diane was missing." Since Diane was not anywhere outside, the rest of the family knew that she was still in the house, which was completely engulfed in flames by now. Everyone was screaming and crying, as they all thought she was going to die. "I felt guilty," said Carmel, "I felt like I should have made sure that she got out of the house." Within four minutes of the call, the first firefighters arrived at the scene, including 11-year veteran Richard Palmer. "A woman informed us that there was indeed someone in the back, trapped on the parlor floor," said Palmer. He had to go through another building to get to the burning house. Meanwhile, in the ambulance Denise was driving, the location came up on that computer. When she saw it, she panicked and said, "Oh boy, that's my family house!" Palmer made it to the side door and used the halogen tool to force it open. "As a firefighter, 99% of the time, you can't see a thing, you have to go completely by touch," said Palmer. He made his way through the kitchen towards the rear of the house, where he found Diane about 10-12 feet away from the window. He carried her out and checked her vitals. He couldn't tell if she was breathing, but she had a pulse. He couldn't carry her back the way he'd come, as there were too many stairs and a fence involved, so he had to take her back through the house after the fire was out. Officer Bill Waylon was the first policeman at the scene. "The mother was crying hysterical," he reported, "I didn't think anyone could survive that fire." Diane was carried out of the house just as Denise and her partner, David Colbourne, arrived at the scene. When Denise saw Diane on the sidewalk, she freaked out and said she couldn't treat her. But she then calmed down and got to work, treating her as if it were any other call, which Ivy said she could never have done. In the ambulance, Diane was combative, but they managed to get her to the hospital, where it was determined she had suffered severe carbon monoxide poisoning. She was transferred to Brahms Memorial Hospital, where she was treated to lower the dangerous CO2 levels in her blood, and was hospitalized for seven weeks. An investigation revealed that the fire was caused by an electrical short. The Kings lost all of their possessions, but not the strength to continue. Diane is doing well, and the Kings praise Denise as the hero, while she praises Palmer. Ivy says if they want to give him a citation, he deserves it, as he risked his life to save Diane's. Category:1994 Category:Fires Category:New York Category:Poisonings